


Every Knick Knack is a Treasure and Every Treasure’s Got a Story

by zaphodsgirl



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Canon, Canon-Typical Violence, DeanCas Smol Things, Demon Dean Winchester, First Kiss, M/M, Pining, Temporary Character Death, smolthings2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-10-26 04:37:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20736350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zaphodsgirl/pseuds/zaphodsgirl
Summary: Five times Dean found a button, and one time he lost it.





	Every Knick Knack is a Treasure and Every Treasure’s Got a Story

**Author's Note:**

> Chuck bless my fellow mods, without whom I would have kept forgetting that I needed to write this fic: [Diamond](https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Diamond/pseuds/A_Diamond), [sconesandtextingandmurder](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sconesandtextingandmurder), and [superhoney](https://archiveofourown.org/users/superhoney/pseuds/superhoney) (who also beta'd like a goddamn goddess).
> 
> Title is taken from the poem "The Crickets Have Arthritis" by Shane Koyczan, which you can see him perform in [this vid](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kKh1es5vBQ)
> 
> The Demon Dean/Crowley reference is very brief.

After expelling Zachariah and his goons from the blood-spattered ruin of Chuck's kitchen, Dean feels a moment of smug satisfaction.

"I learned that from my friend Cas, you son of a bitch," he proclaims to the now empty space, free of any angels except for the scattered remains of the only one that mattered to him. 

Before they leave, he sees just a scrap of blood-soaked cloth, all the remains of a once tan trench coat. He pinches it between his fingers, then crushes it into the fist of his left hand, his own blood seeping into the fabric. 

"You dumb bastard," he whispers too low for Sam and Chuck to hear. He feels something in the cloth and takes a deep breath before he opens his hand, bracing himself to discover another tooth or a scrap of bone. It's only a button, barely attached to the fabric, the thread binding it frayed but for a single strand. He pulls it loose, removing the errant thread that remains, rubbing it between his thumb and middle finger before cleaning it off with his shirt and tucking it into the front pocket of his jeans.

Seeing Cas alive and well soon after makes him forget all about the button. It’s not until days later that he finds it as he empties out his duffel bag at some random laundromat, checking all the pockets as he throws things into the washing machine. He turns it over in his fingers and huffs in disbelief, holding it over the nearby trash can for a moment before he changes his mind and throws it loose into the duffel bag, where he promptly forgets all about it again.

***

It's been a week since Sam fell into the pit, Lucifer no doubt screaming inside him all the way down, dragging Michael with them in the body of their late brother. A week since the end of the life he's always known, a few days since he showed up at Lisa's door, shellshocked and alone. She's told him to stay as long as he needs to, and right now he needs to because he doesn't know what else he's supposed to do. 

He's been staring into space while she's at work and Ben's at school, not even turning on the TV, but today he needs to do laundry or he'll be wandering around her house in his boxer briefs. That's how long it's taken for him to wear the sum total of everything he owns, a single week. He'd never thought about it before, only interested in packing light and periodically replacing what was torn or beyond saving. He pulls everything out of the duffel, turning it inside out, and something falls out. It drops lightly onto the floor of the mudroom with a faint clattering sound, and he's reaching over to pick it up before his brain registers what it is. 

He holds it in his palm, turning it this way and that in the faint light. He wishes he could talk to Cas, but he must be busy in Heaven with so much work to do, all the chaos to be quelled in the absence of God and the betrayal of his own kind. Dean closes his fist around the small piece of plastic, securing it against his palm as he finishes loading the washer and closes the lid. 

Walking back out to the Impala, he gets behind the wheel and turns the button over in his fingers, now warm from the heat of his own body. 

"I hope you're doing okay." He opens the ashtray set into the dash, empty except for a quarter, and places the button there for safekeeping before going back into the house. 

***

It's hard for him to hear Sam and Bobby make their arguments against Cas, because he knows that logically everything they're saying makes sense. If they were discussing any other being in the universe Dean would agree with their assessment without question, but he can't make himself do it. There's something inside him warring against instinct this time, a bone deep certainty that Cas could never betray him. _Would _never. Not after betraying his own brothers and sisters, the entirety of the host, to use his free will and stand with the Winchesters at the lip of Hell itself.

He opens the ashtray to throw in some spare change after leaving the Gas n' Sip, and the button catches his eye, standing out from all silver and copper. He plucks it out, still in pristine condition, and puts it in the front left pocket of his jeans, a token to remind him of Cas's loyalty. He rubs it through the fabric every time he finds himself on defense, the proof right there, the size of a silver dollar. 

Dean feels a sense of smug satisfaction when Cas shows up in the nick of time to smite the demons attacking them in the cabin, and tries not to bite his lip as Sam and Bobby both offer their sincerest apologies. But Cas slips, makes a comment that gives him away, and Dean knows that something's not right. Even so, he's sure there's an explanation, something he hasn't thought of yet. There must be.

He's sure until the moment Castiel stands captive in a ring of holy fire, and looks away from him in shame. Dean tries not to throw up as the realization hits him hard, grabbing his stomach with both hands and freefalling with it to the floor. He keeps rubbing the button in his left pocket, like he can erase the tarnish that stains their friendship now, marring everything that was good about them. 

As they run from the cabin he looks back at Castiel's face, aglow with the flames and his own sense of surety, and for the first time in years feels like he doesn't know him at all. Later that night, he's sure of it.

The button stays in his pocket all the time now, no longer a token of loyalty, but a memorial to something lost. Some_one_. He keeps it with him until the day he holds the empty trench coat itself in his hands, mourning a dead angel. 

***

"I think we're going to do extraordinary things together," Crowley purrs against Dean's shoulder, sliding his hands across his hips, caressing. "We're going to howl at the moon and do very, very naughty things." 

Dean laughs lowly, leaning his weight back against Crowley. "To others, or to each other?" 

"Why not both?" His hands creep over Dean's pelvis, pulling their bodies together, massing him through the denim. "What's this?" He burrows a hand into Dean's left front pocket and pulls out a piece of tan plastic. "A trophy?"

Dean pulls it out of his fingers as he turns around, fixing Crowley with a dark look as he steps towards him, then again, until he's pinned up against the wall. Dean braces himself with one hand on either side of Crowley's head, leaning in to nip at his throat and whisper darkly in his ear.

"That's not for you."

"It's not for you either. You're beneath him now, Dean, damned for all time. He won't even look at you, not like I will." Crowley hooks his fingers into Dean's belt loops, pulling him closer. "I'm going to do things to you he would never dream of." 

"Maybe," Dean agrees, tucking the button into his back pocket as his eyes go black. "And I'll probably enjoy them all." He leans in close again, bringing their lips within a hair's breadth of each other. "But you will _never _be him."

***

There never seems to be time, he thinks. Time for them to rest, time for them to talk, time for them to just be in the same room and the same space without something pressing on them. _As soon as this is over_, he constantly thinks, but for Team Free Will nothing is ever over, and so the opportunities to address the elephant in the room keep passing him by. A look will pass between them, something fraught with meaning, and by the time he's worked up the courage to open his mouth there's an interruption. Hours will go by as he thinks about that moment, trying to get through the task at hand, and then suddenly days have gone by and the opportunity is long gone. He'll spend days agonizing over whether it meant what he wants it to mean, weeks trying to recreate it so he'll have another chance to speak, and then months reminding himself of everything Crowley said to him when he was a demon, unchecked and unclean with the Mark roiling in his veins.

_You're beneath him now_.

It's true, and it always has been. Dean has to keep finding ways to remind himself of that. To make himself see Cas as nothing more than family, just another brother to him. It's like a knife in his heart every time he tells Castiel anything except what he really wants to say: _I need you, you're my family, you're our brother. I need you._

_I need you._

Sam will be asleep beside him in the Impala, driving through the night to some random destination, and Dean will turn the button over and over in his fingers while his other hand is on the wheel. He's held onto it all these years like a talisman, but it's starting to remind him of a rabbit's foot he and Sam had hold of long ago, the luck within it tainted somehow. 

When Castiel betrays him yet again, under the sway of Lucifer's offspring to come, Dean tosses the button into the drawer of his nightstand at the bunker. It suddenly feels too big to carry with him all the time, an albatross full of too much unrequited emotion, heavy around his neck.

The weight doesn't really lift off of him until he's on his knees, a set of wings burned into the ground before him, and he feels gutted and hollow.

***

He's managed to keep it together on the drive back to the bunker, eyes continually drawn to the rearview mirror, observing the lone figure in the backseat. Sam has been turned sideways for the whole drive, peppering Cas with endless questions, and for once Dean is grateful for his boundless curiosity. It means Dean doesn't have to engage, can just drive mindlessly while he pulls himself together.

_I thought I'd lost you again_, he thinks every time he takes a glance. _I thought I'd lost you for good._

He's calm enough by the time they enter the bunker that he can go through the motions, standing back to let Jack talk to Cas, feign excitement at the case he's found. It gives him an excuse to leave, to hasten down the hallway to his bedroom and shut himself within. 

"Fuck," he says just inside the door, leaning against it with his hands on his knees, trying to calm his racing heart. He stumbles to the bed, falling onto the edge of it and putting his head in his hands. "He's okay. He's alive." He slides a hand under his pillow where the Colt used to lie, clenching his fist around what's there and pulling it to his chest, breathing in through his nose and out through his mouth. He keeps his eyes clenched shut, trying to superimpose the image of Cas in that alley, whole and alive, over the other one that's been haunting his dreams for weeks -- Cas lying between the burned remnants of his shattered wings, unresponsive and quickly growing cold in the night air. "He's alive," he mutters over and over like a mantra, rocking himself back and forth.

"I'm alive," Cas affirms, and Dean's eyes fly open as Cas squats before him, reaching out to place a hand on Dean's fist. "I'm here." He pulls Dean's hand towards him, gently, and Dean allows it without thinking. "What's this?"

"It's nothing. It's stupid." His fingers loosen, and Cas glances up at him before he gently unfurls them, flattening them out as he gazes solemnly at the tiny button in Dean's hand. He looks at it for a long time, holding Dean's hand, tracing the pulse point at his wrist with his thumb.

"I wanted to ask," Cas finally says, covering Dean's palm with his own, the button pressed between them. "If you missed me."

"Yeah," Dean croaks out. "For a long time."

"How long?" He looks up, and for the first time Dean lets himself actually see everything he's been looking for in those striking eyes. 

"Too long," he says, leaning in to brush their lips together. 

He'd always imagined that if they ever came together it would be like a summer storm: hot and furious, full of an intensity that comes on too strong and ends too soon. Instead Cas slowly moves his hands to cup Dean's face, pressing their lips together more intently, kissing like he wants to savor it, like he'll never have this again. 

Dean reaches up to tangle his own hands in Cas's unruly hair, the little button dropping to the floor where he once again forgets all about it, because he doesn't need it anymore.


End file.
